


Everlasting Pictures

by JoJo



Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: Gen, POV First Person, Smoking, Undercover, partner worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-18
Updated: 2013-04-18
Packaged: 2017-12-08 05:12:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/757440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoJo/pseuds/JoJo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Undercover work's not for the faint-hearted</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everlasting Pictures

**Author's Note:**

> first posted to the Bay City Library December 2005

Now sometimes the powers-that-be give us our undercover identities ready-made -- with backstory, costumes and quirks included. I always seem to end up with the flashy suit. And my partner generally gets to be crazy. It drives us nuts -- I mean, no-one likes to be typecast. So... sometimes we change them around a bit, add stuff. Sometimes we even come up with the whole deal ourselves. We've spent many an entertaining stakeout inventing who we're going to be. I like accents. Starsk favors hats.

"Don't get into your character too much," some wag advised us once. "You'll be really bummed out if they get shot." 

Dressed in my flashy suit, ready for my big entrance stage left in about half an hour, I watched Starsky from the wings. He was down on the quay, and his meet was just beginning. I was up in the Harbor Master's office with Captain Dobey, glued to the telescope. Could see every nuance of the performance from there. Would know at once if he was overdoing it or if he wasn't trying hard enough. 

"Give me marks out of ten," he'd said before he skipped off down to the marina. 

Well, seven or eight for his first walk-on. His normal swagger had been rolled right down and he was easing a nonchalant way along to the mooring where the _Little Joe_ had just tied up. Poor Starsk. He'd been so disappointed when they announced he'd really need to dress down for this one. 

"Dress down?" I'd questioned, leaning my hand on his shoulder and laughing in his face. 

They said he had to look mean, too. So he got to wear stubble and a knitted hat, and streaky faded pants that looked like someone had died in them. 

"Couldn't he be mean and still wear a suit?" he'd asked me. 

"Starsky, he spends his life jumping from one boat to another and hiding out in cargo holds. Um... what kind of a suit do you want him to wear?" 

"He has an Italian name. Can't he wear an Italian suit?" 

"Starsk, the day Mark Vicenzi wears a suit is the day I get you to eat tofu." 

"Hutch," he'd said, looking at me pityingly. "Mark Vicenzi doesn't exist." 

But actually, the way he was playing him today, he kinda did. In any case, I'd invested quite a bit of time in thinking about Vicenzi, seeing as I was playing his boss. 

"Nice and easy, Starsky," Dobey was muttering under his breath as he looked on through the binoculars. 

We watched him pause by the blue and white boat, hands in pockets, the Mark Vicenzi in him looking around coolly. He turned his back towards us in the Harbor Master's office and scratched his butt lazily. Yeah, OK, Starsk, we get the message. Then a head bobbed up out of the cabin of the _Little Joe_. 

Starsky approached the edge of the quay, watching as a tall, thin guy with a moustache came clambering up on deck and then took a big step up on to the side of the boat. He balanced there, giving us a good view of him. He was looking with curiosity at the laidback bum who was waiting for him. I couldn't lip-read what he said, but Starsky's body language suggested a challenge. My partner pulled his hands out of his pockets and began to explain something. Then he began to turn and walk away, still easy as anything, until his guy called him back, jumping on to the quayside. 

"Reel him in," I murmured. 

They stood at an uneasy arm's length from one another. Starsky was launching into his big speech. He'd gabbled his way through it last night when we were in rehearsal, but he was doing it nice and slow today. Moustache was listening to every word, thinking about it. 

"Don't rush him," I said out loud. "Subtle and persuasive -- you can do it." 

Dobey snorted. 

Then Starsky reached into his back pocket and drew something out. Something unscripted. He had a little white pack in his hand which he flipped open. The invisible antennae on my head started humming. 

"What in hell is he doing?" I spluttered. 

"Nice touch," Dobey commented. 

Starsky offered the pack to Moustache and then he put a cigarette between his lips and leaned forward to accept a light. He moved a little, turning slightly so he was facing us. A little tilt of the head back so the sun was on his face. A deep inhalation. Then he blew the smoke out in the general direction of the Harbor Master's office and tucked the cigarette back in his mouth. 

I was incandescent. I could practically hear his bronchials screaming for mercy. When Starsky carried on breathing deep through the whole cigarette, like he was smoking a joint, Dobey lost the joke and got nervous. We watched him and Moustache talking. The nicotine seemed to have given my partner a whole new facet to his characterization. He was having a ball. And he knew I was watching. The flick of the butt into the water was just for me. 

"I think he's going for it," Dobey suddenly said. Moustache had turned out to sea and was pointing way out at the glimmering shape of Vic Monte's yacht on the horizon. Starsky shaded his eyes as he followed Moustache's finger. Then the two of them looked at their watches. Starsky nodded. He still had the pack in his hand. I saw him glance down, and then fish out another cigarette. While it was clamped between his teeth he retrieved the paper with the all-important phone number on it. Moustache took it and then offered the light again. A farewell gift. Then Starsky turned around, cool as a cucumber, and began wandering back along the quay towards us, the smoke drifting up occasionally over his head. Moustache jumped back on board and dipped into the cabin. The _Little Joe_ juddered as the engine caught. 

"I'm going to kill him," I said, pushing the telescope aside. 

After a few minutes we heard the door opening below and then feet coming up the stairs. I stood where I was by the window, trying to lever some air down into my starched shirt collar. When Starsky came in, Dobey took charge. 

"He went for it?" 

Starsky nodded. "Yup. Monte'll be expecting Hutch in about an hour. They're going to call when they're sending the launch." His voice was tell-tale scratchy. He had one arm dropped down by his side and he gave me a slightly nervous look as if he had just been caught stealing candy. I strode across the office, grabbed his arm and jerked the remains of the second cigarette out of his hand. I threw it on the floor and stepped on it. 

"You _stupid_ idiot!" I said. 

My tone of voice stung him, as I intended. "Come on," Starsky responded. "I'm just playin a role, Hutch. I haven't taken to the weed or nothin." 

"Playing a role my ass," I snarled back. "The crap in those things could put you right back in hospital tomorrow, Starsky. You can't go in a smoky bar without gasping for breath. Are you out of your mind?" 

"I hope they're Lights at least," Dobey put in, attempting to diffuse things. 

Starsky shot him a grin. "Of course they are. I'm not _that_ stupid." He cleared his throat and then thumped the centre of his chest with his balled up fist, trying the grin on me. "Hurts like hell, though," he said, his voice nearly giving way on him. 

"What is the point of all the misery you've gone through, Starsky, if you're going to jeopardize it by sucking tar into your lungs? Huh? They said cigarettes -- any cigarettes -- were an absolute no-no. You know that. What is wrong with you?" 

God knows I was at the end of the line with listening to myself being the Voice of Reason. But... I couldn't do anything about it .. I just had these everlasting pictures flashing up in my mind, of him lying there in that bleeping, clanking, sterile hellhole of a hospital room where they'd given him no chance of survival. I could hear the hissing of the ventilator as he stretched and strained for each breath, the bubbling of the froth that threatened to drown him. I could see the blue of his lips as he pulled for enough air to get him through another couple of seconds of life. Fuck it, I could see him lying with his chest pock-marked by bullets, his blood rushing headlong into a warm, sticky puddle that my hand had sunk right into. I'd lived with him through the hours of soul-sucking agony he'd endured, when every day he managed to see through seemed like one incredible achievement too far. Even now the whole thing seemed more real to me than it did to him. I just couldn't get my head around why he had to taunt me with it. 

Starsky snatched off his cap and threw it across the office. "I'll tell you what's wrong with me, Hutch," he said. "What's wrong with me is I need to get on and do my job, in my way, and live my life. Sure it's dumb to smoke a cigarette. Sure, I coulda got away with not doing it. But I need to do it my way, Hutch... or I'm not doing it at all." 

"You don't have to make yourself sick," I muttered, and then it came out before I could check it. "I've only just got my life back." 

"Oh brother," Captain Dobey said at that point, shaking his head. "Here we go again." 

"I'm just worried," I parried. 

"Yeah?" Starsky's voice was quiet. Stony quiet. "And am I not worried sick about you going over there now -- with no vest and no wire? We are going to have no idea what's going on when you get there, Hutch. No way of knowing what's going down, or if they've made you. Monte's cabin crew carry automatic weapons -- a whole lot bigger, nastier and more dangerous than two lousy cigarettes. So wouldya just cut it out? Let's us both do the job and take the risks, huh? Or it might as well be over." 

We were always threatening to cut each other loose these days. Always standing toe to toe instead of shoulder to shoulder. We wore each other down to the bone at times. But the glue was holding. 

I looked down at my flashy suit. 

"And sorry about your life," Starsky added sourly. 

Just at that minute I couldn't stand to be myself anymore -- and not because I thought I was wrong. I had to shrug on my character, tightening the tie, reaching for the suit jacket that was hanging over the chair. It's just possible I'd still be this worried, even if he hadn't flatlined six months ago. After all, he was that worried about me. 

"Listen, Vicenzi," I said. "I got some new rules for my employees. No booze. No loose women. And no smoking." 

"We didn't agree that," Starsky said. "You were going to be a catholic, not a methodist." 

"I'm the boss. I can be what I like." 

"That's true," Dobey said and we both looked at him. "You'd better get down to the phone, Hutchinson." 

I did up the buttons of the jacket and turned to my partner. "How'd I look?" 

Starsky nodded his head. "Like a millionaire mobster." He scratched at his stubble. "Take it easy out there, OK?" 

I fussed with my tie again. 

"OK?" Starsky had come right up to me and taken hold of my arm, gripping it so hard it made me wince. I could read the fear in his eyes. "Don't take any risks." 

I raised my eyebrows at that, but I knew just what that sick feeling in his stomach was like. All of a sudden I realised he was probably getting a flash of those same everlasting pictures. "I'll see you in a coupla hours," I said. 

"Don't push it with those guys, Hutchinson," Dobey said quietly. "And don't drink too much of Vic Monte's champagne." 

Starsky saw me to the door with his hand resting between my shoulder-blades, gentle now, unwilling to let me go. 

"Well I'll try," I said. "But I got a performance to put on, remember." I looked back at my partner. He feared for me, sure. But he trusted me too. Somehow I had to find that again with him. "By the way, Starsk. That was nearly a perfect ten you pulled off back there." I gave a wry smile. "Perhaps the smokes helped." 

"Get on out of here," he said, motioning me down the stairs. At the bottom I tightened my tie once more. Starsky called out as I got my hand to the door. "Say, Hutchinson?" 

"Yeah?" 

"If you don't come back I get the Oscar by default." 

"It's yours already," I said. "The Academy always goes for method acting." 

"OK then, let's level the playing-field," he said. "Take these. For luck." And he reached behind him and produced the white pack. "You c'n trash 'em when you're done, boss." He lobbed the pack down the stairs and I caught it as I went out the door. 


End file.
